


I'm Fine, Mother

by YoMo715



Series: Remembered Anew (Breath of the Wild Ficlets) [9]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Link's relationship with parents, sads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-06 19:40:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12824652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YoMo715/pseuds/YoMo715
Summary: A look into Link's relationship with his parents in the events leading up the Calamity.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I uh... came up with this idea and kinda wrote the whole one-shot in one go :'D

It was the only time he’d ever seen his mother cry. In all of his fifteen years, not once had he witnessed her shoulders slouch or calm demeanor waver.

Only here, in the midst of the chaos, did her breath falter and a tear loose down her cheek.

 

It wasn’t because she’d just lost her husband.

It wasn’t because she knew she’d likely never see her son again.

It wasn’t because her beloved kingdom was falling apart before her eyes.

 

It was because he finally told her the truth.

If he had known it was causing her that much grief, he would have told her so much sooner. It was just so much _easier_ for him to lie back then, when words died behind his teeth, when it was a struggle to even smile. “I’m fine, mother,” he would whisper, and she would only respond with _that look,_ the one that prickled his gut with shame. But it was still _easier_ than telling the truth.

He still didn’t know why he told her _now,_ while Castle Town burned to ash, amidst the screams of friends and family, and knowing his own father was lost in the steadily-growing sea of cadavers.

Actually, maybe it was the perfect time.

She was still fighting when they found her. Guardians crumbled beneath, piling under the inner wall as they clambered toward her. Each were pierced by blue; a hot, electric knife cutting through their cold gaze and scrambling their innards into mere tinkertoys.

The initial look she gave him was relief—a passing glance as she let another arrow fly. It was gone as quickly as it had come, though, replaced by stone as the light left her eyes. She was silent, set on destroying the corrupted automatons.

Words. He needed words. “King?” was the first.

“Gone.” Her only answer.

And then, even softer, “Father?”

“...Gone.”

A lump formed in his throat. He waited, then nodded.

“The castle is lost,” she explained. “You have to run.”

The princess protested. “There must be something else we can do!”

“No. There’s nothing left for you here.” His mother’s gaze turned to him, her blue eyes burning. “ _Set your sights elsewhere._ ” It was an order. A code drilled into him from a very young age.

He obeyed with another nod.

“I’ll hold them off for as long as I can. Keep the princess safe, and use these,” was her last command. She shoved a few of the crudely-fashioned blue arrows into his hand and returned her focus to the guardians.

Link stopped her though. It was stupid, what he was doing, but the words needed to be said no matter how difficult they were to speak. He stepped forward and gripped the sleeve of her shirt, just like he used to do as a curious child with a question.

“Mother,” he spoke. His voice trembled more than he thought it would.

She gave him a glance in acknowledgement. That was his only cue.

“Mother… I… am _not_ fine.”

The air stilled, like the mayhem ceased just for his statement. He kept his hold on her sleeve, knuckles white from his grip, but he couldn’t move. The weight of his confession was so much _heavier_ than he anticipated. His boots turned to iron. His head hung like a ball on a chain and his chest constricted, squeezing the breath out of him as a ReDead would strangle its victim.

But it was _she_ who cried.

As frozen as he was before, it was the sound of a sniffle from her that completely stunned him. It almost physically ached: the way her hand grasped his arm, then his shoulder, then his head. The way she wrapped him up in a quick one-handed hug, grip firm but hold soft. The way she kissed his forehead—something she hadn’t done since he was very young.

It was how tenderly she whispered, “I know, baby. I know,” before pushing him away to fire at another guardian.

Dead aim, as always.  

On that day, Adelie Rowe-Calder of Hebra watched her only son disappear with the princess into the plains of Hyrule Field. The phrase he uttered, one of the last she’d ever hear from him, would carry her through many years of trial and hardship.

And at last, long after her hair had turned white and her skin covered in wrinkles, she would hear that dreadful phrase again. But this time, it was no longer a lie.

“I’m fine, Mother.”

 

 

 

 


	2. Cold Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of "I'm Fine, Mother." Set Post Calamity (In-game)

The old woman found herself staring at the decimated castle ruins for the umpteenth time. Ever since those strange glowing towers appeared, she’d begun this long ritual of watching and waiting. 

The winds of Hebra were always merciless. Updrafts from Hyrule Ridge whipped the air with such a ferocity that its icy breath could freeze even the mightiest of warriors. Even so, she gazed from her spot, knees braced, arms huddled in her shawl to stave off the cold. She sat, as she always did, in her favorite chair on the balcony with the best view of Central Hyrule. Her eyes—cold, crystalline, blue—scoured every inch of green, searching for a flicker of hope in the tainted wilderness. 

Her eldest, Caleb, often pleaded for her to come back inside. He figured her age finally started to catch up with her. Being as ancient as she was, it was only a matter of time before her mind began to fail. He found it unsurprising when she denied his requests with strange cryptic phrases such as, “My son is coming home.” 

She insisted she was not losing her mind, but she couldn’t think of anything else. “Today is the day, Caleb.” She whispered, the words an afterthought. “I’ll see my son again.” 

That day wasn’t ‘the day.’ Neither was the next, or the one after that. Days turned into weeks, months, until the spring thaw came and greenery crept to their home at the edge of the Hebra Mountains. 

“I suppose it helps keep her sharp,” said Annette one morning, watching Caleb’s mother from the window while she cleaned the dishes. “Vigilant as she’s always been, even at her old age. Must be that smidge of Sheikah blood in her.”

“It’s silly,” Caleb sighed to his wife. He placed his big, calloused hands on his hips. “She’s driving herself mad, waiting for this ‘son’ of hers. I’m right here, ya know!” 

Annette giggled and rolled her eyes. Then she hummed, her gentle, husky voice muttering,  “Maybe there’s some truth in it?”

Caleb raised an eyebrow. 

“She’s never talked about the Age of Burning Fields, right?” She defended with a huff. “Maybe you have a secret brother!” 

Caleb  _ scoffed.  _ “Yeah, a secret brother. And Emily has a—ow, hey!” He flinched when she swatted him with the towel. “Come on, Nettie. He’d be long dead anyhow.” 

“Go play with your  _ not secret  _ daughter,  _ dearest _ ,” Annette smiled with  _ that tone.  _

“Yes ma’am,” Caleb complied immediately. 

Emily was beginning to grow into that strange age when playing games with Papa were becoming childish. Yet, she was still a blank canvas in some ways; impressionable and naive, with hope in her heart and simplistic dreams of a happy world. She was easily swayed by others, like how she had taken to staying with her grandmother on those long vigils. Impervious to the cold, as most eleven-year-olds think they are, Emily sat beside Grandmama on the floor, unflinching as the wind tickled her rosy cheeks and curly brown hair. Caleb sometimes overheard their conversations. Most of the time, he just ignored them. 

Then, one day, the strange tower that had risen at the edge of Hyrule Ridge began to glow blue. 

Caleb thought nothing of it at first. The event was so impartial to him that he wouldn’t have ever noticed it if his daughter hadn’t pointed it out to him. “Look, Papa!” She shouted, excitement hiding behind chattering teeth that bit back the cold. “Look, it’s turned blue!"

“Why yes, it has,” he answered with indifference. But when he glanced over to his mother, he noticed she was  _ smiling.  _

She never smiled. Not even in her younger days. 

“That’s my son,” she whispered. The sparkle in her eyes that had dulled with age now shined brighter than ever. “Caleb, my boy is coming home soon.” 

Caleb tried to smile. “Sure, Ma,” was all he said. 

It was only a few days later that Caleb came across a traveler collapsed in the mountains. He found the poor boy buried in the snow, injured and half-frozen to death. The child was so cold that he’d stopped shivering; lips blue, fingers gray, breathing slow. The only thing keeping him alive, Caleb surmised, was the flameblade lying a few inches from his face. 

When he returned from the mountains with the boy, Caleb’s mother left her seat on the balcony. 

“Couldn’t be older than sixteen,” Annette frowned as she stripped the traveler of his wet gear by the fire. Indeed, the boy was very young. He looked scrawny as a twig, with the small stature to match, and his cheeks still retained the pudginess of baby fat in them, waiting to be chiseled into shape by time. 

So naturally none of them were expecting the scars littering his tiny frame. Some big, most small, the skin that was supposed to be soft and cherubic was instead rough and calloused. Caleb frowned. Annette gasped. 

His mother just stared, sad eyes fixed on the particularly ugly burn scar fastening the flesh of his chest in place. 

Annette worked with a steady hand, treating the superficial wounds on his arm and thigh, while Caleb and Emily warmed his frozen extremities. His fingers, toes, and nose were mildly frostbitten. The skin, red, raw, and swollen, looked painful but was easily treatable with a few warm soaks.

“Must’ve run into a Lizalfos,” Caleb explained later, when the family left the boy to warm and rest by the fire. “Nasty things, especially with the ones ‘round here that breathe ice.” 

“Poor thing. Someone so young shouldn’t travel that far into the mountains,” Annette sighed and shook her head. 

Caleb shrugged. “Prob’ly surprised ‘im. He seemed pretty well prepared. Snowquill gear n’all, the whole deal.” 

The pair looked back to the fire. The boy lied swathed in a cocoon of blankets, lips still blue and bits of hair frozen to his face. Next to him sat Emily. Despite being awake long after her bedtime, she knelt over the traveler, little brow wrinkled in focus as she held warming stones to his icy fingers with Grandmama’s careful instruction. Caleb’s mother, too, stayed up late with eyes fixed on the boy like a hawk. She remained, even as Emily turned in for the evening, as the grandfather clock chimed midnight. Caleb urged her to bed. 

“Someone has to watch him,” was her explanation. 

“He’ll make it. The worst has passed,” Caleb assured. “Come to bed, Ma, you need your rest.” 

“I’ll be fine.”

Caleb knew better than anyone not to argue with his mother. He sighed and went to bed, vaguely aware of the way she held the boy’s hand. 

The traveler woke the next day. He did so with a sputtering cough, wrenching free of his cocoon expecting a battle. 

“Whoa, whoa there,” Annette called, the first to spot him. “Easy. You’re safe here.”

He seemed to calm at that, but still looked cautious in his vulnerable state. One hand braced against the hearth of the fireplace, while the other gripped his shoulder, staining red from the wound tearing back open by the sudden movement. His wide eyes—cold, crystalline, blue—frantically searched the strangers for answers. 

“There you go, good.” Annette‘s voice was soft. “My husband found you in the mountains and brought you here.” While she moved closer, she explained herself in that calm, patient way that Caleb could never hope to recreate. “What’s your name? I’m Annette."

The boy scanned each of their faces. His brow still furrowed with wariness, though his eyes softened as he settled on Annette’s. “Link,” he answered. His voice was a little deeper than Caleb expected. A bit airy and hoarse, but otherwise calm. 

“Nice to meet you, Link,” Annette smiled. 

The one called Link nodded. He mouthed a word,  _ thank you,  _ but there was no air behind his voice, like it shriveled and died in the back of his throat.

“What were you doing so deep in the mountains?” Caleb cut in, arms crossed. “I don’t usually go that far in, even when hunting’s bad. Too many monsters.”

The boy’s expression flattened. He hummed once, as if checking to make sure his voice still existed. “Exploring,” he answered after a drawn out silence. “Got careless.” 

To Caleb’s surprise, it was his own mother who chided Link. “You certainly did. Those mountains are much more dangerous than you’d think.” She huffed in a nostalgic stern voice that she hadn’t used since Caleb’s sister was a teenager. 

The others turned to look at her, but Link  _ stared.  _ “Do I know you?” His raspy voice whispered, the scolding forgotten. 

There was a beat. A pause. Then, she  _ smiled _ again. “Seen any other old hags around?” 

Link shifted uncomfortably at her blunt question, but didn’t speak. 

“Maybe one of them, then.” She patted the boy on the cheek. He froze while her smile turned stale. “Annette, come to the kitchen,” she then proclaimed, tapping her cane to the floor. “We’ll make gourmet meat stew for dinner and warm this poor boy up some."

Powerless, Annette followed. When Caleb saw how the boy, Link, was staring expectantly toward the kitchen, he smiled. “Care to join us for dinner?” 

Realizing he was staring, Link’s face turned cherry red. His look cast downward to an ornamental pillow. “Can I?” He muttered, the sound more or less air. “Meat stew…is my favorite.” 

Caleb just laughed. 

As the meal preparation began, so did the questions about the stranger known as Link. Emily started them—as any child would—when the boy dug up to his shoulder through the contents of his pouch and pulled out a fairy tonic for healing. Enchanted pouches weren’t... _ uncommon  _ per se, but since Emily had never seen one before, she was amazed at the odd sight. 

“Where did you get that pouch?” She first asked while Link applied some of the tonic directly onto his wounds. 

He drank the rest, then turned to look at her. “I found it,” was his first answer. 

“Yes, but where?” Emily egged, freckled cheeks puffing. 

Link blinked. “Great Plateau.” 

“The Great Plateau?” Emily’s eyes shined. “Really? I’ve never been there! I thought it was impossible to get to because it’s so high up.” She inched forward, propping her head up with her elbows and swinging her feet against the floorboards. The action created a rhythmic thump, a routine sound signifying her endless curiosity. “How did you get all the way up there?” 

The boy must have felt less enthused than she, because he didn’t answer. 

Emily frowned at that. She refused to give up, however. “Well, where else have you been?” 

Link seemed more inclined to answer that one. He looked to the ceiling in thought, counting out the places on his fingertips as he spoke. “Central Hyrule, Faron, Necluda, Akkala...Eldin. Hebra.” 

“Wow,” they heard Annette from the kitchen. “That’s almost the whole country!” 

Link nodded. 

“So you’ve been to Zora’s Domain?” Emily piped up again, grinning. “Hateno? Lurelin? Goron City?” He kept nodding to answer each question, until a small smile spread across his lips. “That’s so cool!” Emily’s eyes were sparkling now. “So you’ve met a Zora? I’ve never met one before. It’s too cold here for them.” 

Link nodded once more. He reached back into his pouch, pulling out an odd looking stone slab with a sheikah symbol on it, fiddling with the odd device until he seemed satisfied. “I have some pictures.”

“Whoa!” Emily’s mouth hung open. She sat up in a rush, leaning on the boy (who winced, but quietly) to see the pictures. “Did you draw these? They’re so cool! Is that really a Zora? That red one is so big, he looks like a shark!” 

Link’s smile grew. “That’s Prince Sidon.” 

“You met a  _ prince?!”  _ Emily’s voice couldn’t squeak higher with more excitement if she tried. “Mama, Mister Link met a  _ prince!”  _

“Yes, I heard,” Annette laughed. 

Link’s little smile grew into a grin, amused by Emily’s awe. “I met the King, too.” 

“You must be an  _ amazing  _ person!” She exclaimed. 

At once, Link’s grin disappeared. “Not really,” he whispered. His gaze was drawn back down at the stone tablet he was holding. “I’m just a traveler.” 

“A traveler who met with the  _ King  _ of the Zoras!” Emily gladly pointed out to him. He smiled back at her again, but this time it was different. Dispirited. It didn’t take her very long to pick up on his mood, so she changed the subject. “Did you draw these?” Her chubby little fingers pointed to the slate. 

Link’s expression returned to normal when he shook his head. “You can capture images with it,” he explained, then lifted the slate toward her. There was a little  _ click _ , and when he turned back with the slate, she was stunned to find a true-to-life image of her imprinted on the stone. 

“Wow!” She gasped. “That’s  _ me!”  _ Her little feet tapped against the floor. 

“That’s you,” Link repeated, smile returning. 

“Can you take one with both of us?” 

“Sure.” Link set the slate down and pulled a blue tunic from his pouch so he could cover his bare chest. 

“Where did you get those scars?” Emily blurted as Link started to slip the tunic over his head. 

He blinked, frozen for a moment with the tunic still halfway on. It didn’t take long for him to recover, though, as he finished yanking it on over his head a little too quickly, like time caught up with him. “Battles.” 

Emily watched as he fussed with his hair, pulling the disheveled ponytail out and brushing his fingers through to try and loosen the golden knots before tying them back. It must not have been to Emily’s liking, though, for she ran off and returned a few seconds later with a hairbrush. “Let me!” She insisted. “Your hair is such a pretty color, so it has to look perfect for the picture.” 

Link couldn’t argue with that. He thanked her with a nod, ignoring the way her little hands still fumbled with the brush and yanked on his hair at times. 

“Do you fight monsters?” She started again after about a minute of silence. 

Link couldn’t nod now, so he answered with a, “Yes.” 

“What kinds?” 

“All kinds.”

“Moblins?”

“Yep.” 

“Bokoblins?”

“Mhmm.”

“Even,” Emily leaned closer to whisper with a cupped hand, “Lynels?” 

“Even Lynels,” he whispered back, cupping his hand as well. 

“Dinner’s almost ready!” They heard Annette shout from the kitchen, cutting off Emily’s surprise. 

“Okay, Mama!” Emily called back. She moved with haste to pull Link’s hair up into a slick ponytail. “Come on, take the picture!” 

He nodded, tapping on the slate to access its camera feature. “Ready,” Link announced. Emily plopped herself down so closely next to him that her curly brown locks almost tickled Link’s nose. He didn’t seem to mind, though, as he held the slate up on an angle until they were both in frame. “Smile,” he encouraged. 

Emily was the first to the table afterwards. The mischievous girl had plucked the slate right out of Link’s hands after that little  _ click _ sounded, grinning from ear to ear as she presented it to grandmama. 

“Look!” she nearly shouted. “Look, Grandmama, Link captured a picture of us!” 

“Oh, did he?” Caleb’s mother turned to look. “This is certainly peculiar,” she hummed with slight interest, but not quite the same amount of interest that Emily would’ve had. Nevertheless, she looked at the image displayed on the slate, then snickered. “Emily, must you smile so wide? I can’t see your pretty green eyes.” 

“But then you can’t see how happy I am!” Emily protested with a pout.

“Maybe you should give some of your smile to Link,” chuckled Annette, peering over Emily’s shoulder to see the image. “He’s barely smiling at all!”

Link, now brought into the conversation, frowned. “We can take another one,” he proposed with a mumble. 

Emily’s expression brightened, but Annette snuffed her excitement. “After dinner you can. For now, we’re going to eat!” 

It was Link’s turn for his eyes to light up. 

The boy, the small family soon realized, had quite the appetite.They watched in awe as he devoured the first bowl of stew. It was followed by another, and then one more, and by the time he was done, he had consumed a total of four bowls.

Caleb smirked. “You’ve got a lot of stomach for someone so tiny.”  

Link’s face went pink again. “I was hungry,” he confessed and glanced down at the floor, shame in his eyes. 

“It seems so!” Annette smiled. “We should have made more stew.”

“I’m sorry.” Link frowned.

“Oh, don’t be!” Annette waved away his apology. “I’m sure you needed some decent, warm food, since you probably haven’t eaten in awhile.” 

The boy nodded. “Thank you. It was very good.” 

“Isn’t it?” said Emily, who also happened to be on her third bowl. “Grandmama’s meat stew is the best!” 

Link turned to look at Caleb’s mother. “Thank you,” he repeated a little softer. 

She  _ smiled.  _ “Want to know my secret?” She waited until he nodded. “Hyrule herb and a dash of honey. Works every time!” 

Link’s eyes widened. “Really?” he whispered, unable to hide his surprise. Caleb’s mother nodded, but no one was expecting him to say, “I do that, too.” 

“Oh?” Caleb’s mother inquired. “Are you a connoisseur? 

Link shook his head. “I just like to cook.” 

“Where did you get that recipe?” Annette asked. “I’ve never heard of adding honey and herbs into a meat stew before.” 

“I didn’t,” Link pouted. “I just thought it needed something else.” 

“Maybe your Mum made it that way and didn’t tell ya?” Caleb hummed aloud. 

That seemed to cause the worst reaction of all the questions asked so far, for Link fell into a total silence. His body stilled, locking into place, rigid. His cold eyes were drawn again to the floor. 

Annette and Caleb exchanged a melancholic look of understanding. 

Poor Emily didn’t seem to grasp the situation, though. “Did something happen to your Mama?” She asked ever-so-innocently. 

“Emily, that’s very rude,” Annette chided. 

Before Emily, could apologize, though, Link answered. “I don’t know,” he said first, attempting to muster a proper sentence. The words wouldn’t manifest, though. 

“Was your home attacked?” Caleb tried to finish his thought for him. 

Link shook his head. “I don’t know,” was all he could manage to repeat. 

“Then you don’t remember them,” is what Caleb’s mother whispered. It wasn’t a phrased like a question. Caleb didn’t know why, but she looked so  _ sad  _ to him _ ,  _ like her world crumbled. 

Link just nodded. 

“Are you looking around Hyrule to remember them?” Emily asked, still wanting to help. 

“Maybe,” Link shrugged. 

“What  _ do _ you remember?” She asked further. 

Link was quiet for a long time. “Nothing.” 

The room felt inexplicably empty, like it had hollowed and became just a shell of its former self. No one spoke for a while. 

“Don’t worry,” Caleb’s mother’s voice wobbled, more than it usually did considering how ancient she was. “You will, in time.” 

“I hope so,” Link’s voice was near-nonexistent. “All I know is that I miss them.” 

“I’m sure they miss you too.” 

Link just nodded. Again. 

“I want to see more stuff from your pouch!” Emily unexpectedly called out after a few minutes of silence. The chair skidded behind her as she stood and nearly fell over. That didn’t seem to stop her, though, as she shuffled around the table until she was at Link’s side. “You must collect stuff from your adventures, so show me some. Okay?” This time it was concern,  _ not _  curiosity, that caused Emily’s sudden outburst.

“Okay,” Link agreed, still  looking reluctant, but relieved enough to move again.

The two spent the next hour or so sifting through Link’s enchanted pouch. He showed her many things: an assortment of weapons (including a royal claymore, which Link—incredibly—could lift with one hand), a few different herbs he’d collected, some different items of clothing (Emily’s favorite was the Zoran armor, mainly due to the fact that it’d been made by the late princess Mipha), and some masks he’d found during his travels.

“This one with the leaf on it is so cute!” Emily held it over her face.

Mood improved, Link smiled. “I use that one to find koroks.”

“Koroks are real?!” Emily bounced to her feet in excitement. “You can  _ see _  them? I’ve never found one!”

“They’re  _ really _  good at hiding.” Link stood as he took the mask back, shaking it a little. “The mask twitches when I’m close to one.”

“Can I see? Is there one close by?”

“Emily,” they heard Caleb scold. “It’s the dead of night, and I’d bet Mister Link wouldn’t want to go back out in the cold just yet, now would’e?”

“Right,” Emily frowned. “Maybe tomorrow?” There was an absurd amount of hope in her green eyes as she looked up to Link.

Link’s small smile took on a sour note. “I have to leave tomorrow,” he explained. “There’s something I need to do.”

“Aww, you can’t leave,” Emily whined. She pointed to his nose. “You’re still hurt. Look, your nose is still red and blistered, there’s no way you can leave until you’re all better!”

“No need to rush into anything,” Caleb’s mother, who’d been watching them this whole time, rose her voice a little. “That’s probably what got you hurt in the first place.”

Link actually pouted, looking more like a child than he had since Caleb found him. “I didn’t know that Lizalfos could breathe ice,” he muttered under his breath.

“All the more reason to be cautious, and stay,” she added.

“Yeah!” Emily voiced as well. “Stay for a little while. Please?”

Link did stay. It was only for two days, until he had recovered from his wounds (and Emily ran out of reasons), but in that short span of time he learned many things about the small family living alone in the Hebra mountains. He learned how Emily’s knack for the curious usually resorted to getting into some sort of trouble. He learned that Caleb was not as skilled an archer as he thought he was (either that or Link was born gifted with divine archery skills). Annette taught him the importance of salt when cooking the perfect dish.

But most importantly, he learned that Grandmama’s archery skills were unrivaled in her youth, and though she could no longer draw a bow, she still held a medal from Hateno’s archery competition as proof.

“Grandmama was amazing!” Emily proclaimed at dinnertime on the final night of his stay.

“How would you know?” Annette chuckled. “You’ve never seen her shoot!”

“Oh, I  _ know  _ things,” Emily grinned. “You knew she was an archery instructor at the castle, right Papa?”

Caleb’s eyebrows shot up. “No, I didn’t know that.” He gave his mother a suspicious look. “Trained the princess herself, did ya Ma?”

Caleb’s mother hummed. She glanced to the others, taking note of how uncharacteristically wide Link’s eyes were. “No,” she answered in her usual, blunt manner. “But I  _ did _  train the knights.”

It was Link who asked the next question. “Did you know the Champions?” He inquired, voice oddly hurried.

The other’s gazes were drawn to Link, who ignored their stares.

Caleb’s mother gave him a  _ look.  _ The kind of  _ look _  that exchanges conversation without needing to speak. For reassurance, she added, “I did.”

Link’s face went white. His lips pursed flat into a line.

But then Caleb, who didn’t understand that  _look,_ asked with a furrowed brow, “How come you didn’t tell us any o’this, Ma?” 

“It wasn’t important,” His mother answered with a shrug. “You know how I feel about the past.”

Something within Caleb that had been churning in his gut for the past several months now sprang up into his chest, bubbling with anger. “Then why did you tell Emily?”

“She wanted to hear some stories.”

Caleb huffed. He was standing now. “Stories?” Right,” he spit with sarcasm.

“Caleb,” Annette warned.

He held his hand up, silencing her. “You told my daughter tall tales while you both sat on the balcony for  _ months _ , freezing your cheeks off waiting for someone who was never gonna show up in the first place!” He hadn’t realized his tone had risen significantly. “I won’t have it anymore! This is farce! Nonsense, all of it!”

“It’s not nonsense, Papa!” cried Emily.

That’s when Link gasped. His voice hitched, eyes wide as a Hinox, shaking like a leaf as he glued his gaze to Caleb’s mother. He stood too quickly, knocking over his chair and stumbling. His hand braced against the table for support. By the time Annette stood to assist him, though, he was already moving. One shaky foot shuffled in front of the other, like Link was walking on eggshells and hoping they wouldn’t crack.

There were tears in his eyes when he fell to his knees in front of the old woman. He cupped her wrinkled, leathery cheeks in his hands, eyes locked on hers.

For some reason, in that moment Caleb was acutely aware of the fact that their eyes both glistened a bright sky blue.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” Link whimpered, starting to sniffle.

She  _ smiled  _ again, patting the boy on the cheek as she had done when he arrived. “Finally remembering, baby?”

Link’s tears were flowing freely now. He made a pathetic sort of squeaking noise as he stifled a cry, careful to wrap her old bones up in his arms while he hugged her tight. She just held him that way, cradling his head in one hand and rubbing his back with the other, like she used to do when he was a child.

“What’s going on, Ma?” They heard Caleb ask. The other three were simply dumbfounded, staring at them like they were cuccos running without heads.

“I told you, didn’t I?” Addie smiled at him. “My son’s come home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that not all of my one shots exist on the same timeline. I am aware that my stories are sometimes inconsistent, and this is intentional. My headcanons do not always add up, and therefore each story should be treated as its own timeline unless specified otherwise. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Feedback is always appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Feedback is always appreciated!


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